As a technology by which a Fibre Channel (FC) storage area network (SAN) is achieved on the Ethernet (registered trademark), there is Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE). With the use of the FCoE, a SAN and a local area network (LAN) through the Ethernet, which have been deployed separately in a related art, may be integrated into a single network. With the use of the FCoE, the number of switches, the number of adapters, and the number of cables may be reduced by half, so that the simplification of network management may be achieved.
On the other hand, due to an increase in the number of servers that are installed in a data center, and an increase in the number of virtual servers using a virtualization technology, a problem occurs that the number of end nodes is increased. It is desirable that the performance of the network is improved when the number of end nodes is increased. However, there are many cases in which a network is constructed using a lot of switches each of which uses a relatively low-cost large scale integrated circuits (LSI) in order to improve the scale of the network.
Similar to the FC, in the FCoE, pieces of information on end nodes are managed by an FCoE Forwarder (FCF). In the FCoE, when the number of end nodes is increased, an area that stores pieces of information on end nodes, which is to be secured, is increased. However, as described above, when the relatively low-cost LSI is used, the storage capacity is limited. Therefore, the scale of the system is limited undesirably by employing the FCoE as is.
In the FCoE, two protocols are used. One of the protocols is an FCoE protocol. The FCoE protocol is a protocol that is related to a data plane of the FCoE. In the FCoE protocol, encapsulation and decapsulation of an FC packet (also referred to as an FC frame) in an Ethernet packet (also referred to as an Ethernet frame) are defined.
The other protocol is an FCoE Initialization Protocol (FIP). The FIP is a protocol that is related to a control plane of the FCoE. The FIP is used to find a device that is coupled to an Ethernet network and causes the FCoE to be operated by a control packet. The FIP defines log-in and log-out processes of an FC.
In certain literatures, decentralization of processing in the control plane of the FCoE has been considered. However, the data plane has not been considered in the literatures. As related arts, for example, Japanese National Publication of International Patent Application No. 2014-502126 and Japanese National Publication of International Patent Application No. 2011-528205 have been discussed.